Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus that divides a large number of contents and displays the divided contents page by page, a method of controlling the information processing apparatus, and a storage medium, and more particularly to control for maintaining continuity of display of contents.
Description of the Related Art
In recent years, digital contents, such as images and moving images, can be easily created or acquired by an individual, and as a consequence, a large number of contents are managed in an information processing apparatus by the individual.
In general, information processing apparatuses include one configured to display a large number of contents as one page when a user views a desired content, and display the content desired by the user in a display area on a screen by page scrolling. On the other hand, there has been proposed an information processing apparatus configured to divide, when displaying a large number of contents, the contents into a plurality of pages, and display the contents in a display area on a screen by switching between these pages (see e.g. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-176658).
Further, the conventional information processing apparatuses include one configured to always display, when displaying contents, a control for controlling the display of the contents to thereby improve the user-friendliness. As such an information processing apparatus, with a view to increasing the number of contents to be displayed, there has been proposed one configured to display controls indicating presence of contents which cannot be displayed, on a contents selection screen, in a manner superimposed on the contents (see e.g. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-157033).
By the way, when a large number of contents are displayed on one page without dividing the contents and a user attempts to change contents displayed in a display area on a screen by operating a scroll bar, the contents displayed in the display area on the screen are largely moved by just a slight operation on the scroll bar. Therefore, it is difficult to display a content desired by the user in the display area on the screen by page scrolling operation, and the user can reach a desired content only after page scrolling is performed many times.
On the other hand, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-176658 discloses a technique in which when a large number of contents are divided into a plurality of pages for display, the screen displays an indication that a page currently displayed on the screen is a partial image which belongs to a whole image including an image associated with a preceding or subsequent page.
However, according to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-176658, the page currently displayed on the screen is a partial image, and hence it is difficult for the user to perform an operation for display of images including an image before or after the currently displayed partial image in a manner such that continuity therebetween is maintained.
Further, according to the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-176658, when the operation for switching between pages is performed, the displayed screen is switched to a next page, which makes it difficult for the user to recognize contents located in the vicinity of each page boundary.
Further, if a display item, such as a button or an icon, is always displayed as the control, the display area for displaying contents is inevitably reduced. On the other hand, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-157033, when the control is displayed in a manner superimposed on the contents, it is difficult for the user to identify the contents.
To cope with the above-described problems, it is envisaged to divide a large number of contents into display sections partially overlapping each other, and display these display sections on the screen.
However, depending on the number of contents existing in each display section and the number of lines of contents displayed in the display area, a blank area in which no contents are displayed is sometimes produced in a starting column and a terminating column in the display section. Further, if such a blank area is produced, it is difficult for the user to recognize continuity of contents between the currently displayed display section and a preceding or following display section.
For example, if the terminating column is not filled with contents in the currently displayed display section despite the existence of a following display section, it is difficult for the user to suppose that the following display section exists. Therefore, the user may not perform an operation for switching the display to the following display section.